“Humility is a slippery slope. If you notice you’re doing a great job of it, there it goes! Crap. I can’t even feel good about it!”  Some guy.    OK. Me.

Or is there a better way?

If you’re like me, you were raised to stay away from pride. And the best way was through an unhealthy understanding of humility.

Pride was associated with tooting your own horn. Bragging. Being full of yourself. Or thinking you were better than others. You were never to call attention to yourself. Or if someone dared compliment you, you were supposed to say something like, “Oh. No. No. I don’t deserve that!” (all the while jumping up and down inside with gratitude.)

Humility was the way to go, but not in a healthy way. Humility was self-deprecation, and it was all backed up as the “Christian” thing to do. Perhaps it was all those years of being pounded with the message that you are a sinner.

C.S. Lewis offers the best definition of humility: Humility is not thinking less of yourself. Humility is thinking of yourself less. And herein lies the path that leads to the inherent, healthy pride and humility that thrive deep within the essence of the soul.

Look at where the focus is on all those earlier statements about what is thought of as pride: Being full of yourself. Thinking you are better than others. Calling attention to yourself. Bragging about (you guessed it) yourself. 

And the self that is being spoken of here, is not the Self. It’s not the True Self (the soul rooted in inherent Oneness with God, or the One.) It is the small self. The insecure self that is rooted in ego. The small self that knows itself to be separate, and thus lives in fear. So it feels the need to promote itself out of its own insecurity.

True, healthy humility comes from thinking of that small self, less and less. Healthy humility comes from losing, letting go of that small self and falling into the Whole. It is a losing to find, as Jesus taught. “The one who loses their life, will find it.”

Think of those times when you were so overwhelmed and lost in the awesomeness of what you were experiencing. You forgot all about yourself, and were only experiencing what you were taking in. You probably felt an inner peace, joy, and a beautiful oneness. You were perfectly content. Nothing was lacking.

That’s what it’s like when you lose yourself in the Ocean of God. You find your place in the totality of all things. And there it is: a “peace which passes all understanding” as the New Testament says.

To say this using the drop of water analogy: When the small, separate drop of water lets go and falls into the great ocean of the Whole (God), it comes to know the greatness of that ocean. It is no longer the focus anymore. It loses itself in the sheer awesome nature of the great Ocean of God. It’s both gone, AND comes to know itself for the first time. It is now conscious that, while it is only a drop, it is the grandeur of the entire Ocean of God.

And so we come to see and say, “I AM the grandeur of the Whole. I AM incredible Love, Peace, Joy, Compassion, and Creativity.” I AM all these things, but all these things do not come from this small, separate, fearful ego I used to identify with. It’s Source is the Great I AM. The great Ocean of the Whole. I AM all these things, but it’s not me. Again. All at the same time.

So there it is. Healthy pride and humility all wrapped up in One (the One.) Pride and Humility flowing out from the essence of the soul, which knows it’s inherent Oneness with God.

What has been seen as opposites (pride and humility) are really two sides of the One coin of the soul.

We can now say with great pride and humility, “I love myself now in ways I couldn’t imagine before! I AM proud of myself, and I’m proud of what God has done in and through me. I AM amazing! Yes!”

But the focus is now on the greatness of the GREAT I AM. Which in turn feeds, and is the Source of my own pride and humility. I am nothing but humbled by such a Truth. Overwhelmed in the awe of it all.

Someone walked up to Jesus and said, “Good Teacher…” And he said, “Why do you call me good? There is none good but God.” Mark 10:18.  At the same time, he would often say, “I and the Father are One.”  John 10:30

Can we see what he was saying?

Pastor Tim Tengblad           timtengblad@comcast.net